Alors. Little Pittsburgh is currently moving toward a codified "Mutual Commitment Registry," which, though not legally binding, would presumably help cohabiting gay and straight couples attest to their relationship status for whatever domestic partner benefits their workplaces offered. That's no small potatoes; I can say from experience that the hoops through which you have to jump to prove that your boyfriend is really your boyfriend is really your boyfriend when trying to add him to your healthcare plan are a royal pain and a real impediment. Yet I'm struck, as usual when it comes to anything in the realm of gay marriage, by the ostentatious nod in the direction of the preservation of taboo:
To have their relationship listed, the couple must live within the city and fill out a "Mutual Commitment Affidavit." The statement pledges that they've been in "a committed relationship" for at least a year, and "intend to remain together indefinitely." They must also be at least 18 years old, not married or in another domestic-partner relationship, and "not related by blood closer than permitted for married couples."Against all the Ew!s in the audience, I'll ask it straight--you'll pardon the expression--out: if a couple of queer brothers or sisters, or a couple of queer cousins, want to bone, what's the rational basis for prohibiting them from doing it? The answer, I think you will find, is that there is no rational basis, but only an acculturated predisposition to finding incest yucky and inherently disgusting--exactly the same type of predisposition, I'll add, that formerly applied to faggotry itself.
The Kulturkampf Right terrifies the well-meaning Left with its hoary invocations of polyandry and man-on-dog-on-lizard-on-flea-on-amoeba group action, and so our advocates of gay marriage go far out of their way to make the perfectly preposterous assertion that the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples somehow fails to imply its extension to polygamous and bigamous groups, for example. Of course it implies the extension of such rights to such groups. The objection from the Right is that this constitutes innate immorality, and from the Left that it constitutes inherent coercion--that polygamous relationships by their very nature place women in a subordinate relationship (as if that were somehow not the case in "traditional" marriage). But to my mind allowing multiple valences in human relationships rather than a rigid insistence that the only meaningful sexual bond is a long-term, committed, monogamous pair-bonding, is precisely the sort of social disorder we ought to be sewing. I happen to know a trio of men who lived together in what they rather jokingly called trinogamy for quite some time, with what appeared from the outside to be a greater measure of happiness and emotional stability than I, for instance, found in my own monogamous couplehood.
A procedural objection to all this is that if we allow people to form almost any domestic arrangement that they desire, the multiplicity of arrangements will swiftly make it impossible for the state to administrate any meaningful system of rights and benefits, which are by their very nature exclusionary and particularistic. To which I reply: yes, exactly! "Traditional marriage" and the "traditional family" are units in a political economy. To turn a phrase: fuck the system.
30 comments:
Ummm..sure. That and a pair of testicles.
You know, Dude, the brain is the largest erogenous zone.
On you, maybe.
Uli doesn't care about anything.
He's a nihilist.
Ah, that must be exhausting.
Brandt can't watch, though, or he has to pay a hundred.
Uhhhh...I'm just gonna go find a cash machine.
IOZ,
Did you read this piece on morality that ran in the NY Times a few months back?
The Moral Instinct
It's a fascinating article and offers a possible explanation for the incest taboo (among others).
Oh, no.
love the post, but where's the explicit defense of bestiality?
Some would say that bestiality is by its nature coercive, and yet if we are honest with outselves we will admit that nearly all of our relationships with animals are inherently coercive. If we find it morally acceptable--and I do--to kill animals at will and consume their flesh, then the notion that we cannot cajole them into sexual acts seems hypocritical to say the least. Boundaries should be drawn: just as we should strive to maintain an food stock animal's dignity through painless and efficient slaughter, we should not feel free to maim or torture animals in pursuit of sexual gratification. We should also be aware that there may be a mental toll on animals used for sexual purposes that we can't understand because of the alien nature of animal intelligence. Nevertheless, blanket prohibitions on sexual gratification from non-human species rests on a flimsy intellectual foundation.
On the other hand, I may change my mind when confronted with the tyranny of our new Centaur overlords.
Centaur Overlords '08!
If I don't find it morally acceptable to kill animals at will and consume their flesh, does that mean I'm being consistent when I also think that we cannot cajole them into sexual acts?
Do you have an intellectual foundation for your acceptance of killing animals for their flesh?
they're yummy.
IOZ,
At the risk of exceeding the Stephen Pinker Article Quota for this thread, I offer this link to a recent Pinker article that came to mind upon learning of your concern for "an[sic] food stock animal's dignity":
The Stupidity of Dignity
In light of this article -- and at the further risk of spurring the IDF (IOZ Defense Force) into action -- would you mind explaining what exactly "animal dignity" is, and how it can possibly be maintained if it is simultaneously "morally acceptable" to "kill them at will"?
Besides, if an animal is only worth the meat on its bones, then why bother worrying about its "dignity" anyway? Hardly seems intellectually consistent to me.
It seems to me there are only two entirely internally consistent ways of looking at this issue:
Either you accept that because animals are intelligent beings capable of suffering they should be accorded the same basic "human" rights as humans (life, liberty, etc.), or else you reject intelligence and capacity for suffering as a basis for human rights and consider all animals (including other humans) as merely resources to be exploited at will.
Of course, this latter way of looking at things is scary as shit because it's basically an endorsement of psychopathy.
Unless you can provide a different basis for human rights that doesn't also apply to animals?
If we accept the first way of looking at things, then we can argue all year about how far out on the evolutionary bush we need to go before we start revoking rights because of insufficient intelligence and capacity for suffering. However, I think it would be very difficult to make a case for such exemptions for mammals and birds.
sentience.
And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own midwest. And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possesed me then. And I begged, Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams? And the angel said unto me, These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust. And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you Jesus.
I've thought about animals about as much as they've thought about me.
The fixation on sex is really tragic.
What about brothers who have been living together their whole lives and who are not having sex with each other? Is there some reason they shouldn't be on each other's insurance? Does the state have some interest in breaking up this domestic arrangement?
What makes this most absurd is the implied premise that domestic arrangements are necessarily first and foremost about sex. That's almost universally untrue of relationships that last more than a year.
It misses the point entirely.
"I've thought about animals about as much as they've thought about me"
Ever live with a dog?
I live with a dog that stares out the window at me or my wife every time one of us leaves the house. He often stays there for hours. As soon as he sees whichever one of us left earlier coming back up the path to the house, he races to the door to greet them.
If, and only if, one of us is home and someone puts the key in the lock or rings the doorbell, he starts to bark ferociously. If no one is home but him, and we're just coming home after being out together without him, he remains quiet.
If we give him a treat before we both leave to go somewhere for the day, he will not eat it. He waits until we come home, at which point he first greets us by jumping up and down and licking us and then races to fetch the treat and takes it to his bed where he promptly begins to devour it while wagging his tail furiously and looking at us to make sure we're watching.
I can unequivocally say that this dog thinks way more about me than I think about him.
Dogs aside, would you seriously argue that the great apes are not sentient? If so, I'd like to see your line of reasoning there! Because that pretty much flies in the face of every scrap of information we have about them -- from their behavior to their brain structure to their genetics.
dylan, it's also consistent to think of humans and animals on a spectrum of intelligence, and based on that, rights. Insects are close enough to machines as to warrant no consideration from us. Chimps have many of our capacities, and so should be accorded rights closer to what we have. Many other species sit in between. And for that matter, children sit between us adults and chimps.
Jim Henley had a good libertarian discussion of animal rights last fall:
http://www.highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2007/08/21/6997
this compulsive fornicator is taking my father for the proverbial ride.
"man-on-dog-on-lizard-on-flea-on-amoeba group action,"
that's hot.
On this as with many topics, it is best to read GNXP.
I forget whether I linked to it here before but John T. Kennedy's Marriage, The Institutional Man, and The Sovereign Individual is pretty good.
Oh, come on. Didn't B. F. Skinner argue against freedom and dignity four decades ago, give or take a few years? I still haven't accumulated enough dramamine to read all the way through Pinker's The Blank Slate, but the parts I've read don't seem the work of a particularly deep thinker, to put it gently. Nor does that New Republic Article on dignity. True, "dignity" is a woolly, poorly defined term, but is there a moral term that isn't? See Chomsky's shredding of Skinner's Beyond Freedom of Dignity for a shining example of how to do it.
I prefer to use other analogies than killing when discussing bestiality. I think, contrary to Dylan, that there's no inconsistency in opposing the killing of animals for human use while permitting sexual relations between human and animals. Killing and sex are not morally equivalent or even comparable, and I'm disturbed at how many people nowadays still hold the Victorian notion that copulation is a fate worse than death.
I prefer to ask people who get in a snit over the notion of bestiality whether they also oppose planned animal breeding by humans (renting animals out to stud -- isn't that prostitution?) and spaying or neutering pets. We already intervene in animals' sexual lives without their consent. But I also think that most animals are capable of showing whether they want to cooperate with a horny human; of course, many humans prefer not to notice the signs, but that's also a common inter-human problem.
we have cats.
if it came to it, I would eat them. we also have a $2000 limit on veterinary operations (plus or minus $100).
if you left, your dog would eventually learn something different to survive and be happy or whatever. as would our cats.
But, but, but, if Teh Ghey gets to have incest then it would be discrimination to prevent straights from marrying ^H^H^H^H^H^H registering their mutually commitments. Next thing you know, we're all muslim. Our cats too.
I love you guys. Read into that what you will.
Leonard said: "dylan, it's also consistent to think of humans and animals on a spectrum of intelligence, and based on that, rights."
agreed.
the promiscuous reader said: "I think, contrary to Dylan, that there's no inconsistency in opposing the killing of animals for human use while permitting sexual relations between human and animals. Killing and sex are not morally equivalent or even comparable, and I'm disturbed at how many people nowadays still hold the Victorian notion that copulation is a fate worse than death."
hang on a sec. i didn't explain my position clearly enough. i don't think we should necessarily condemn all sexual acts between humans and animals of other species as immoral. i think i got hung up on IOZ's use of the word "cajole", so i missed his qualification that people should not be allowed to "maim or torture". i'm totally cool with two consenting animals having as much sex as they want, regardless of either of their species.
mr fundamental said: "if you left, your dog would eventually learn something different to survive and be happy or whatever. as would our cats."
agreed. but what does that have to do with the issue at hand? you seemed to be implying that animals do not think. i was presenting anecdotal evidence that refuted this claim. either i misinterpreted your claim (quite possible since you did not really express it explicitly), or your comments are non sequitur. what am i missing here? what is the point you were/are trying to make?
in the Battle for Caring Most, or in the War on Apathy, who is the winner, and who is the loser?
I still haven't accumulated enough dramamine to read all the way through Pinker's The Blank Slate, but the parts I've read don't seem the work of a particularly deep thinker, to put it gently.
Oh, fucking please, you poser. You obviously haven't read it at all, and you wouldn't know a deep thinker if he ran up and punted your hairy beanbag up over your left shoulder.
Stephen Pinker > The Promiscuous Fuckknob
Pinker approvingly quoted Camilla Paglia on rape, for fuck's sake, and defended Thornhill and Palmer's idiot book on the same subject. I've read that much, and I've read some of his articles and some replies to his critics in the New York Review. I was actually being kind of nice in my previous characterization of the man. So bite me.
1) It's Camille Paglia, not Camilla.
2) What specifically about the passage of Paglia's that Pinker quoted do you find objectionable? I'll reproduce the quote here for you so that you can provide us all with your analysis.
She said:
For a decade, feminists have drilled their disciples to say, "Rape is a crime of violence but not sex." This sugar-coated Shirley Temple nonsense has exposed young women to disaster. Misled by feminism, they do not expect rape from nice boys from good homes who sit next to them in class....
These girls say, "Well, I should be able to get drunk at a fraternity party and go upstairs to a guy's room without anything happening." And I say, "Oh, really? And when you drive your car to New York City, do you leave your keys on the hood?" My point is that if your car is stolen after you do something like that, yes, the police should pursue the thief and he should be punished. But at the same time, the police---and I---have the right to say to you, "You stupid idiot, what the hell were you thinking?"
3) One of the most important observations offered by Pinker in The Blank Slate is that the left has for quite some time ignored or repudiated valid scientific evidence that would suggest that there are biological differences between individual people and groups of people.
Pinker's point is that eventually the empirical evidence of such biological differences will become so overwhelming that the left will have to come to terms with reality. However, if they continue to base their philosophy solely on empirically falsifiable assumptions about human nature (that all people are born with the same innate potential, that men and women would be psychologically identical if not for the influence of a patriarchal society, etc.), then the philosophy is at risk of failing.
The solution is to embrace scientific realities and to remember that morality is not determined by biology.
For example, there is a moral argument that just because I was born with genes that made me smaller than you, doesn't mean that you are allowed to kill me or force me to submit to your will. It would be ludicrous to say: "We must pretend that you and I are the same size, because there are some people who would argue that you do have the right to kill me or dominate me if you are bigger than me." Similarly, it is ridiculous to argue that we must pretend men and women are identical in every way simply because some of the very real differences between them might be used as a justification for repugnant behavior.
It was within this context that Pinker discussed the scientific reality of the inherent, biological differences between men and women---and the differences in behavior that inevitably follow.
The so-called "gender feminists" espouse views that are in stark contrast to reality: "bi-sexual infants are transformed into male and female gender personalities, the one destined to command, the other to obey." This assumption of "bi-sexual infants" completely disregards the vast body of scientific knowledge that tells us about sex-differences in hormone levels throughout the development of the fetus, and the growing body of work that is beginning to show us how hormones alter the developing brain.
Gender feminists offer further empirical claims besides the socially constructed nature of gender differences. They also claim that humans possess a single social motive--power. And finally, that human interactions arise not from the motives of people dealing with each other as individuals but from the motives of groups dealing with other groups--the male gender dominating the female gender.
Pinker contrasts gender feminists with "equity feminists": "Equity feminism is a moral doctrine about equal treatment that makes no commitments regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology. Gender feminism is an empirical doctrine committed to three claims about human nature." [emphasis mine]
Pinker first mentioned Paglia as a member of the equity feminists group who has been critical of the gender feminists.
Later, he discusses how gender feminists have dominated the discourse on rape. They consider rape a "gendered crime" that is entirely about the male gender trying to dominate the female gender. They espouse the complete nonsense that "sexual assault is not an act of sexual gratification" and that "appearance and attractiveness are not relevant."
At this point, Pinker uses the Paglia quote I supplied above to show that not every feminist believes that rape is a manifestation of the power struggle between the male gender and the female gender.
So, how exactly does his quoting of Paglia serve to discredit his entire treatise?
4) I haven't read Thornhill and Palmer's "idiot book", but Pinker seemed to do a pretty good job of defending it, based on the passages he included, the response from their critics, and his own analysis. Would you care to offer your own analysis of why their book is so idiotic, rather than assuming that your saying it is so makes it so?
dylan, sorry for the typo. I accept 50 lashes with a wet noodle for traducing St. Camille.
Well, let's see. Nothing that Paglia says in that quotation disproves the claim that rape is a crime of violence, not of sex. It's simply irrelevant to it.
Next, "Misled by feminism, they do not expect rape from nice boys from good homes who sit next to them in class...." Of course they do. That's what the evil feminists taught them: that any guy, no matter how nice he seems, is a rapist at heart and will force their tender flowers at the first opportunity.
As for her analogy, it's also irrelevant, and quite stupid. Actual treatment of rape victims before and after the rise of Second Wave feminism was based on the assumption that a woman who went into public space alone was "asking for it." The Central Park jogger, for example: what was she doing, jogging outdoors alone? Paglia said something similarly stupid about Matthew Shepard: what did he expect to happen if he got into a truck with two strangers? Ans.: he expected to get fucked senseless, not beaten to death. Paglia, despite her pose of tough-minded realism, is pretty ignorant about the gritty realities of sex. Yes, Shepard was reckless, but he was also doing something that many (most?) gay men do at one time or another in their lives without getting assaulted or killed.
You've made a lot of wild generalizations in your comment that I don't have time to go into here, but the most egregious is your (and Pinker's and others of that ilk) accusation that "the left" is opposed to scientific fact. You mean, like Stephen Jay Gould or Richard Lewontin or Noam Chomsky or Anne Fausto-Sterling or Ruth Hubbard or any number of other left scientists? The whole point that scientists like these make is that the evidence offered by the scientific Right (?) is not valid, and they've made extended, detailed critiques of it. The Scientific Right mainly replies by repeating terms like "left" and "ideology" over and over, while claiming that they themselves have no ideology, just facts. The long history of scientific racism shows that they do have an ideology.
As for Thornhill and Palmer, I've begun an analysis here:
http://thisislikesogay.blogspot.com/2008/05/we-must-we-must-we-must-work-on-our.html
One thing that shows that they're idiots is their recommendation that rape could be curtailed if boys had to take mandatory rape-prevention classes (content unspecified) before receiving their driver's license, and if girls were taught not to dress provocatively. (Burqas?) Pinker concedes the stupidity of the recommendation, saying that it just shows why scientists shouldn't get involved in social policy. But Thornhill and Palmer feel qualified to get involved in social policy, because they're scientists; their recommendations, they claim, are scientific, so by fiat and definition they contain no ideology. Pinker prefers to brush that problem aside.
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